Give Your Characters Roots

This summer, our niece and her family came up from Virginia to our home in the wilds of Western Massachusetts. While we were driving through the countryside checking out local craft breweries, she mentioned that the houses we passed, even the smaller, less-expensive ones, were neater and better cared for than what she saw back home.

I think it’s the weather, particularly the regularly-scheduled natural disaster that New Englanders call winter. We know it’s coming, we know what it will be like, we know what we need to do to get ready. And if you don’t get things done before the snow flies, you’re stuck with them until spring. That hard deadline tends to make people take responsibility for getting the fence painted or the bushes trimmed.

By contrast, I grew up in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, a small town on the Susquehanna River halfway between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. Back in 1959, when the area’s main industry was anthracite coal, one mining company dug a little too close to the underside of the river, opening a hole that let most of the Susquehanna drain into the mines. In the three days it took to plug the hole, ten billion or so gallons of water poured into the tunnels, shutting down the area’s economy all at once and beginning to rot the supports for the mine shafts laced beneath the entire valley.

So in addition to ongoing depression, I grew up in a place where, every once in a while, someone’s backyard would disappear, leaving behind a gaping hole with brackish low-grade sulfuric acid – which is what you get when you steep anthracite coal in water for a couple of years – at the bottom. The entire town sagged subtly downhill on either side of Nassau Street, which followed the solid ground between two mining companies. In addition to watching the town sink, we got to play on the column dumps – the huge mounds made up of oil shale that was separated from the coal on multi-story breaker columns and simply piled nearby. The largest column dump in town – relatively small by local standards — covered roughly a quarter of a mile square and was known to us kids as the Black Desert. Fun fact? Oil shale burns, so every once in a while, older kids would get a tire fire started and set the column dumps ablaze. The soft, blue flames outlining the mounds of shale can actually be kind of pretty, as long as you’re upwind.

Growing up in Mordor gives you a very different outlook on life than growing up in New England. After I’d moved away and gained some perspective, I came to realize that people there are far more likely to make minimal repairs on their homes, buy the cheapest brand, and fail to anticipate foreseeable emergencies. It was a land filled with cars on blocks in backyards and dead major appliances on front porches – too broken to use, too good to throw away. I still struggle to deal with my own passive streak, even after a quarter century of New England winters. Understand, the residents of Wyoming Valley are good people, most of them, as kind and honest and smart and loving as any. But they are more willing to simply let life happen to them rather than take charge. Living on ground that would occasionally open up and swallow you can do that.

When you’re working a novel, it’s easy enough to be aware of other factors that make your characters who they are – education level, family life, birth order. But don’t forget how they’ve been shaped by the places they’ve lived. It’s an influence that most people aren’t aware of in themselves, so if you can capture it in your characters, you can make them feel subtly, subconsciously authentic. So try this exercise: write a few paragraphs on where your characters come from. It may help you to get to know them better.

Living someplace prone to earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, for instance, can give you less confidence in the stability of life. Living under the huge sky of the plains can lead to some understandable humility. Even not having a fixed place – moving several times throughout your childhood, for instance – can shape you. If you’ve never been able to make lasting friendships in childhood, you might grow up either desperate for commitment or shy of it.

One thing that makes J.R.R. Tolkien’s hobbits what they are is the Shire — a small, insular society more interested in genealogy and gardening than adventure, rather like England with furrier feet. Because the Shire is in their bones, the hobbits often approach their adventures like people who would prefer to be in their parlors with their feet up in front of the fire. That sense that they are out of their depth gives the adventure story an added, subtle tension that is finally resolved when they get back to hearth and home.

I suspect that most of Faulkner’s characters couldn’t have existed without the weather of the pre-air-conditioning deep south, when for months of the year the heat and humidity were both oppressive and inescapable. That kind of crushing, unrelenting pressure can make you a little crazy.

Of course, most writers tend to create characters based on their own roots without realizing it – possibly because they haven’t met and gotten to know people whose lives were shaped elsewhere. This isn’t necessarily a problem, especially if all of your characters are from the same place. But bringing in a character from somewhere else – someone who thinks differently from most of your characters in ways they might not consciously realize – can be an effective source of tension.

Our niece mentioned that she found a lot of the people in Virginia a little slow – in the “moseying right along” sense. But she also admitted that they found her to be a typical brash, driven, New York Yankee. (She’s actually from the Philadelphia end of New Jersey, but that distinction is lost on much of the rest of the country.) That kind of irreconcilable difference in personality can lead to some interesting battles, especially if neither side is fully aware of it.

So if you suspect your characters are a little flat, a little too similar, bring in an outsider. There’s a reason “a stranger comes to town” is one of the basic plots. Imagine the place your stranger comes from. What’s the weather like and what kind of effect does it have? What sorts of natural disasters do they have and how often? What sorts of resources do they have – does nature there feel abundant or hardscrabble? Is the landscape flat, rolling, mountainous – postcard or post-apocalyptic movie? And once you have your character rooted in their landscape, turn them loose on your other characters and see what happens.

Give all your characters solid roots, and they will be more individual, more complex, and above all deeply grounded.

So where do your characters come from and how has it affected them? Who have you read who makes use of a character’s roots to create tension?

Wish you could buy this author a cup of joe?

Dave King is the co-author of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, a best-seller among writing books. An independent editor since 1987, he is also a former contributing editor at Writer’s Digest. Many of his magazine pieces on the art of writing have been anthologized in The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing and in The Writer’s Digest Writing Clinic. You can check out several of his articles and get other writing tips on his website.

Comments

Great post, Dave, and I like the personal example of the town where you grew up, as contrasted with New England and Virginia. I suspect where we grow up tends to seep into the world view of the characters we create and we must be mindful of that. As a lifelong New Englander, I set my first novel in the Midwest because I didn’t want to fall into that trap. I know a lot of people who live in the Midwest so it was easy to tap into that world view. You also raise a good point about having characters from different regions interact, which ratchets up the tension. The writer who comes to mind for me is Anne Tyler, who sets all of her stories in Baltimore, but manages to come up with unique and quirky characters each time.

The intriguing thing is, I didn’t realize how much growing up in the Wyoming Valley affected me until I left. The effects of place on character seem obvious once you see them, but you really need to pay attention in order to see them.

Regional perceptions are critical. I grew up in Maryland, which I consider neither northern or southern–just lollygagging somewhere in the middle. In my perception, I have found the farther north you go, the more rude the people are. By contrast, I have found some of the friendliest people are southerners. And yes, there’s a slower way of life the farther south you go. Northerners are fast talkers, southerners are not. I have also found (and I have had other people tell me this) that businesses are handled more sharply in the east vs. the laissez-faire west coast.

That’s MY perception. Is it true of all people all the time? Nope. But I encountered enough people and ways of life in those areas to have that reaction and form those beliefs.

Even within a state these impressions are true. We all have areas in our community where we say in our upper crust voice “Oh, that’s where all the rich people live.” Or we say “Don’t move to so and so town. They’re a bunch of hicks.”

That’s what fascinates me about writing fiction. Especially historical fiction. Just as I formed my own impressions of different regions of the country throughout my life, so did those historical characters–and you have the added complexity of what you THINK you know about history and trying to navigate that to bring your characters and their background to life.

Oh I could go on at length about historical characters — and often have in the past.

And, remember, when you form your sense of how an area affects its inhabitants, always remember that some of those inhabitants will react against their environment. Living among people who are constantly driven might lead you to look for a more relaxed way of life.

Great post and food for thought. We were recently in the upper peninsula of Michigan, a gorgeous place. I commented to my husband that if they didn’t get a billion feet of snow every winter (we get our share in the lower peninsula but nothing like theirs), I could live there. And I also notice each time we are there the practicality of the housing, the laid back personalities of the residents. This hardy stock makes me think it’s ripe for a good story/characters…!

Really enjoyed your personal piece Dave. Esp. the details of a coal mining town. I can practically feel the heat of the mound, since I would probably join the kids in setting it aflame. Pyro at heart.

Since I moved to various countries in my youth and even when we lived in the same town, to different locations, I am hyper-aware of how a place affects a child and families. My stories are always rooted in a particular time and place and my characters are affected by their location. Where they come from helps me to see what they value, what misbeliefs they hold (this one thing of Lisa Cron’s has really helped put the pieces of the puzzle together for me), where they long to go and where they’re actually going.

Oh, Wyoming Valley was an adventure. And, as I said, if you live in one place all your life, you often aren’t aware of the effect it can have. So you’re right, moving around a lot as a child can make you aware of how place affects us.

You pulled me into the places you wrote about, a lovely post. I lived in the Midwest most of my life, and though we don’t have New England winters, the preparation for winter is similar, a time I always enjoyed–putting the garden to bed and allowing more inside time. Now I live in California and miss that rubric as autumn approaches. But when I write, my characters are back in the Midwest. It’s in my bones. It’s what I know.

This makes me wonder about another possible difference. Do people who live in places that experience four sharply distinct seasons experience time differently from people who live where the climate is more uniform? What do you think?

People with four seasons definitely experience time differently. Depending on your ability to enjoy being indoors, time can seem to drag in the winter. Even reading and writing can make you feel boxed in. But then there’s SPRING and wow, the change is awesome. Living in the LA area has been a major adjustment for me. I love the change of seasons, but they are hardly noticeable here. When it gets cloudy or rains???? I love the ability to stay indoors.

By the way, the Black Desert is still there, even if it’s getting a little overgrown — birch trees seem to come back first. If you go to Packer Ave, West Pittston, Pa on Google Earth, you can see it to the west — across the street from the golf course. There’s an even bigger column dump off McAlpine St, Avoca, where I used to plink away at cans with a .22.

Among other effects this has had on me, it’s made me a big proponent of solar and wind power. Some people consider wind turbines ugly, but they’ve never had to live with column dumps.

Ooh, nice. Lots of workable usable stuff here. Of my four characters, two are supposedly from the same place, but one has real roots there and the other wishes he had (jealousy ensues). One character is consciously escaping his place of origin while subliminally trying to live up to its expectations. The fourth character is passionately devoted to his place of origin and is desperately trying to return to it from his current exile. More richness and thickness to this story! Thanks!

(Incidentally, Dave, if I climb up on my roof and peer south over the state line, I can probably see your rooftop. Howdy, quasi-neighbor!)

See, that’s how you can use location to shape your characters. That’s just what I’m talking about.

And you’re over the line in Vermont? The Hill Towns — a cluster of small towns between the Connecticut River and the Berkshires — are technically in the foothills to the Green Mountains. Or so I’m told.

I have Pennsylvania roots also. Reading area mostly. My Mom, like Taylor Swift, grew up in Wyomissing. My great uncle raised sheep in the farm country of Oley. Part of my childhood was spent on the Main Line; not the snooty university towns that boasted colleges like Bryn Mawr, Haverford or Villanova.

My Main Line was the ragged end of the tracks in a town of small frame homes and cinder block schools. We swam in the community pool, raced slot cars, shot off bottle rockets, and glued together plastic models of movie monsters. The only celebrity around was Chubby Checker, who lived a few streets over. A big date for my parents was going to the movie theater on Route 30. One night they saw “North by Northwest”.

Real life seemed to exist somewhere else. My childhood was distinguished by how often we moved from one state to another, from one frame house and cinder block school to another. The friendships I had didn’t last. My parent’s marriage didn’t either.

That is perhaps why I am always looking for the place where my real life will begin. The exciting life. The life of drama, glamour, cocktails, connections, long friendships, one great love, literature. A life that is like a movie, but mine. I live in New York City and have for a long time. I have drama, doses of glamour, cocktails, long friendships, one great love and a literary career.

You make some really important points here, Dave. I try to resist stereotyping, but I can easily see character being formed by place. In fact, I spoke at a geopoetics conference a few years ago on this subject, along with fellow poets and an equal number of geographers.

I remember moving from Maryland to Massachusetts many years ago and wondering if I was romanticising to think that people there seemed fundamentally different from those back home.

We often talk about using place as a character in fiction, but I think what you’ve described gets to the heart of how to do that.

Terrific post, Dave. The intro was so engaging I would have read it for that alone. This post also reminds me of how we tend to judge people in real life without understanding their background. I catch myself doing this when I drive through the poorer, rougher parts of town. I look at the weed-choked yards and broken bottles on the street. I read about the violence that occurs almost nightly. I ask myself how people can live like this. Don’t they care about their homes, their neighborhood, their children? Then I realize they’ve probably lived all their lives in an environment where they feel they account for very little, where someone else has the power and calls the shots. Or maybe they’re working too hard to keep the lights on and put food on the table to worry about a few dandelions in the lawn. As you said, the influence of where we live is so pervasive, we often don’t appreciate it.

A couple of you have brought up an aspect of this I didn’t really go into — the relationship between roots and stereotype. It’s tricky, since the ways a geographic area shapes a local culture are often at the root of most stereotypes. As I said, our niece saw people around her in Virginia as moving kinda’ slow. They saw her as frenetic.

On the other hand, stereotyping is lazy characterization, turning real people into nothing more than a simple (and unoriginal) set of characteristics. How do you distinguish?

One way is to recognize that geography affects different people in different ways. Growing up on the lower slope of a volcano might make some people passive and others hypervigilant. Also, we are affected by a lot more than our geography — family, education, and personal history shape us as much or more than local geography-based culture.

Yes, I think that’s true, Dave. I started to write more about New Englanders and quickly saw that it could get complicated, from the sturdy, do-it-yourselfers I loved to folks like the sad, lost people in stories by Russell Banks and Richard Russo–and the list just got longer from there. Still, though, for each I could see the influence of place.

I talk about the Outsider/Visitor character in Art of Character. It’s a great way to reveal through conflict: make the “home” characters have to explain their world to this stranger. Or, alternatively, have the outside see the “home world” through a distinctly different lens, forcing the “homegrown characters” to reassess the world they thought they knew well.

Two of my favorite “strangers” are:

1. Dill, from To Kill a Mocking Bird — who makes Scout and Jem see their hometown (and their enigmatic neighbor, Boo Radley), in a whole new way.

Great post. The characters determine the true nature of things and their rooted place(s) help the reader identify. A dream world might be a very real place or it might be “magical,” however the characters must know or discover their surroundings. The environment is so, so, so important — and worth an examination.

Dave- Thanks so much for this post — for the general and the specific too. I am so with you in terms of how place and landscape defines us — or me anyway. And though I am not from there, I spend a lot of time in Anthracite country and the Susquehanna Valley (have stumbled into the Tomato Festival in Pittston!) — your descriptions of your childhood places were so beautiful and relatable. It should tell you a lot about how powerful this post is that so many of us are feeling this urge to talk about OUR places… You made me think of a great piece Michael Chabon wrote a while ago in the NY Review of Books: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/07/16/manhood-for-amateurs-the-wilderness-of-childhood/ Also: I am reading Barbara Taylor’s SING IN THE MORNING, CRY AT NIGHT right now — check it out if you have not…

You’ve been to the Tomato Festival? You should try the Cherry Blossom Festival in West Pittston. Last time I was there, someone was selling little Hummel-like figures carved out of anthracite. Cute, chubby jet-black shiny little figures. About as disturbing as you might imagine.

I spend a lot of time creating my characters, my conflict, and my first chapter. Setting the stage. Part of that is getting inside my characters’ heads and just knowing who they are. Then, once I’ve got all that right, I like to say that the story writes itself. I don’t know how I’d do that without giving my characters roots, so this is great advice. (Of course they still surprise me along the way, but it’s never random.)